The invention relates to a problem encountered in various manufacturing and processing plants of handling and transporting with no damage objects that are relatively delicate and highly vulnerable to damage by impact forces. The initial embodiment of the invention is directed to the handling and conveying of oranges in a packing plant where the problem is especially challenging for a number of reasons. In the first place, oranges are easily bruised and a bruise so slight as to be hardly noticeable may cause an orange to deteriorate before it reaches the consumer. In the second place, oranges are of such high liquid content that they have high specific gravity and therefore generate high momentum or kinetic energy when permitted to gravitate or fall freely for even a small distance. In the third place, grading and classifying oranges from a bulk supply at economic cost requires movement of the oranges in single file at a high rate of speed past automated inspection stations that detect defects for the purpose of classifying the oranges. Finally, the inspected fruit must be distributed at high speed into the various classifications.
In such a processing system it may be desirable to maintain a high rate of production by dropping the inspected oranges in rapid succession onto a conveyor leading to a particular discharge point instead of rolling the oranges more slowly onto the conveyor. It is also to be noted that a technique for detecting defects in oranges has been developed which involves projecting the oranges in timed sequence on short trajectories with the trajectories directed to the receiving station of a conveyor that has a continuous series of holders traveling in synchronism with the timed sequence of the trajectories.